eeek
13th March 2010, 04:26 PM
I've had such an adventure!
For those of you who missed my last post, I went up to Durham (which is 250 miles from Mid Wales...) yesterday to look at a Standardbred for sale. I've been thinking about buying one for a long time and was just really waiting for the cash, the right horse and the go ahead from the parents.
Saw this lad advertised online and he has breeding to DIE for.
He was very reasonably priced and I couldn't stop thinking about him.
Rang up about him and liked what I heard but the line was terrible and I couldn't understand much of what the owner was saying. He sent me some pictures but they were awful. Still couldn't stop thinking about him. I NEEDED to know why he was cheap!
By some miracle my parents agreed I could buy another. I explained I'm a trotting addict, and pointed out that it's better than being addicted to shopping or drugs, and they caved in :evilgrin::evilgrin:
So off I went, with my feral friend/assistant trainer and of course Terry the dog.
And the horse is lovely!!
He's big, around 16hh. He's not the most beautiful animal in the world but that doesn't bother me, he's not ugly either. He seems to have a lovely temperament. He's only 5 and hasn't done anything much for 18 months as far as I can tell, but he's exceptionally quiet and laid back.
My feral friend and I pooled our limited knowledge of conformation (and we also swotted up on conformation and racehorse selection on the way there from the trotting bible!) and examined him from head to toe. From what we can tell, he is good enough. But I will get him vetted anyway because this really isn't my forte. The only things we could find wrong with him are that his neck is a bit short for his body (does this matter?) and his hind legs are a bit straight (how much does this matter?). Pretty much everything else about him we liked. His feet are particularly good, I think, he has plenty of room for heart and lungs, and a nice strong bum.
Bear in mind that buying a trotter is completely different to buying a riding horse. Buyers of trotters rarely expect to see it being handled, they just look at the conformation and the racing potential because they don't care about manners if the thing runs fast. So the seller was quite surprised when I asked him to tack the horse up, but he did it without any complaints and the horse wasn't bothered in the slightest. Seller told me he's broken to ride (wasn't expecting that!) so I hopped on his back. I didn't go anywhere because I didn't have a helmet but he was fine with that.
*gotta run now, more later!!!*
sorry to leave you in the lurch!
For those of you who missed my last post, I went up to Durham (which is 250 miles from Mid Wales...) yesterday to look at a Standardbred for sale. I've been thinking about buying one for a long time and was just really waiting for the cash, the right horse and the go ahead from the parents.
Saw this lad advertised online and he has breeding to DIE for.
He was very reasonably priced and I couldn't stop thinking about him.
Rang up about him and liked what I heard but the line was terrible and I couldn't understand much of what the owner was saying. He sent me some pictures but they were awful. Still couldn't stop thinking about him. I NEEDED to know why he was cheap!
By some miracle my parents agreed I could buy another. I explained I'm a trotting addict, and pointed out that it's better than being addicted to shopping or drugs, and they caved in :evilgrin::evilgrin:
So off I went, with my feral friend/assistant trainer and of course Terry the dog.
And the horse is lovely!!
He's big, around 16hh. He's not the most beautiful animal in the world but that doesn't bother me, he's not ugly either. He seems to have a lovely temperament. He's only 5 and hasn't done anything much for 18 months as far as I can tell, but he's exceptionally quiet and laid back.
My feral friend and I pooled our limited knowledge of conformation (and we also swotted up on conformation and racehorse selection on the way there from the trotting bible!) and examined him from head to toe. From what we can tell, he is good enough. But I will get him vetted anyway because this really isn't my forte. The only things we could find wrong with him are that his neck is a bit short for his body (does this matter?) and his hind legs are a bit straight (how much does this matter?). Pretty much everything else about him we liked. His feet are particularly good, I think, he has plenty of room for heart and lungs, and a nice strong bum.
Bear in mind that buying a trotter is completely different to buying a riding horse. Buyers of trotters rarely expect to see it being handled, they just look at the conformation and the racing potential because they don't care about manners if the thing runs fast. So the seller was quite surprised when I asked him to tack the horse up, but he did it without any complaints and the horse wasn't bothered in the slightest. Seller told me he's broken to ride (wasn't expecting that!) so I hopped on his back. I didn't go anywhere because I didn't have a helmet but he was fine with that.
*gotta run now, more later!!!*
sorry to leave you in the lurch!